The Last Monkey Master
by Jimmy1201
Summary: Entry for Stormchaser90's 3rd Annual Heebie-Jeebie Hullabaloo Halloween Story Contest. Also a bit of angst.


**_Author's Notes_**

 _My thanks to CajunBear73, Sentinel103 and Daccu65 who have provided their usual inspiration, ideas, plot hole detection and valuable editing on parts of this story._

 _Sentinel103 actually wrote a good bit of this story. Any parts that are boring or insufficiently horrifying are entirely my property. :)_

 _These are not my characters, if this was a Disney story, the Mom would have died in the beginning._

* * *

"Doctor Director, we ah have a 'situation'.", Agent Will Du announced as he knocked on her office door.

The one-eyed director of the United Nations law enforcement arm motioned for her 'top' Agent to enter her office where she was conducting a meeting and asked, "What is so important Will?"

"Report from the biology department on the files that our hackers managed to copy from DNAmy's servers"

The once cocky Asian man handed over the whole packet to his boss and stepped back so she could scan over the document without him hovering.

As she read it she rubbed her temples, "Possibly the end of mankind? Is this a joke?"

"Read further Ma'am, That's only if her calculations are correct. The report gives statistics for the elimination of **all** life on Earth if her calculations are wrong."

She paged through the report looking for something she had missed, "Where is the information on the antidote? You can't hold the world for ransom if there is no antidote!"

Her Top Agent closed his eyes in disbelief and replied, "Ma'am, we believe that her intent isn't to ransom the world, but remove the humanity that had treated her beloved Montgomery Fiske so poorly and make room for a new master species to rule the world."

DNAmy was a Team Possible villain and had never been considered dangerous enough to spend one of their Top Agent's efforts on. Three weeks ago, when a report came in about DNAmy kidnapping Dr. Drakken's child, it had been put into the Team Possible Queue. The queue of tasks for them to handle the next time they were available. That report sat in the queue for weeks. This new report couldn't be allowed to sit in a queue.

* * *

Kim sat back in the space created by tearing out the last few rows of seats in the passenger jet. They were in a hurry and they needed the space for their parachutes and go bags. There was another half-hour before they reached the Florida Keys. She and Ron were wearing their chutes, had double-checked them and their go bags and were ready for their drop.

Kim thought that surely there would be something to say between BFFs that hadn't seen each other in _years_. Even though she wasn't one to worry over "might-have-beens", she found herself wondering if mankind wouldn't be in danger right now if Eric _hadn't_ been real. Of course, even when they rescued the real Eric after the battle, she, touched by Ron's words, went back to the prom with Ron and even dated him happily the rest of the year and through the summer. But she ended up attracted to the more serious and "grown up" Eric and swapped Ron for Eric during Senior year, even selecting a college to attend with him. The events of Graduation changed that, while Ron and Shego were rescuing her, Eric was killed while fleeing the stadium, crushed by a landing walker. Kim looked at her former mission partner and boyfriend and now mission partner again and mused, 'I hope there is still a chance for us… at least as friends.'

After the defeat of the Lowardians, a heartbroken Kim went to college and a devastated Ron went to Yamanouchi, he knew the girl that he loved had to get over Eric and it was best for her to make a clean break with the past and that included demoting a "lifelong best friend forever" to a "maybe casual friend". They expected to see each other at on the occasional mission, but that quickly tapered off and then dried up entirely their senior year when Wade quit the mission business.

Wade was growing into his teenage body with a vengeance and had been working out to try to catch the eye of one of Joss Possible's friends. Jimmy Blamhammer met with Wade in person to talk about movie rights for an action film based on Rufus. Impressed by the young genius's physique, personality, and backstory, Jimmy talked Wade into appearing on 'Dancing With The Stars' (Junior Edition). Wade made it to the final four before being kicked out, but it was too late for Team Possible. Wade fell head over heels in love with his sweet dancing partner, Masha Stiachkov, left his computers behind and the last anyone had heard, was dancing with the Russian beauty on tour.

Kim was extra busy with her course load and was meeting new people who didn't have anything to do with her past and she liked it that way because of the ache in her chest.

Agent Du had reported that the former teen hero was working part-time with a maritime recovery/salvage company. She was a legend from the time she crawled inside a capsized cavernous cargo ship carrying new BMW automobiles. Her task was to make sure that they were all properly secured so nothing would break free and put a hole in the hull when her team rolled the ship upright. Her partner in that action was killed when a line snapped and dropped an automobile on him. She recovered his body, secured that vehicle and carried on. She was instrumental in her eight-person team earning their fifty million dollar fee for five days of brutal, round the clock work.

Many of Kim's team considered her an "Ice Queen". Several men reporting that when offering to be her partner on a task, she would decline, saying "Thanks, but no, I've only had one good partner and you're not him. I don't want to have to bring your dead body back." The company had offered to hire her "one good partner", but she simply replied, "He doesn't want to work with me any longer."

Ron was more secluded and solitary than Kim. Only one Japanese woman could get through to him as he tried to shut himself off from everyone else especially red-haired women, if he was carrying a torch he wouldn't admit even to her. Doctor Director did have intelligence that the former minor member of Team Possible had taken on and survived some fifteen missions that were classified 'suicide' without complaint nor call to his former partner for assistance.

Kim had been seeing Marco in college, but just before graduation, he broke it off, saying she was too high maintenance and too serious. The grapevine suggested that Yori had broken off with Ron claiming that "a new Sensei must be serious and has no time for 'American Style Shenanigans'".

Among the many current regrets that Dr. Director had was ignoring the developing skills of the members of the former Team Possible. Instead of trying to use them for Global Justice's hardest cases, they only considered them for cases suitable for "teen heroes". At the very least, she regretted not even trying to get the team back together.

Having to hunt down and then get Kim and Ron back together for this mission took Global Justice days. Days when Doctor Director felt like she was running an obstacle course through a minefield trying to find the former teammates. Days that it turned out the human race could not afford.

* * *

Betty Director stood up to greet the two young adults that walked into the conference room.

"You two are certainly hard to find, don't you carry Kimmunicators anymore?"

"I was on the top of a mountain meditating. You don't carry communication devices, in fact, you go to the top of the mountain to get away from them." Ron replied, his face windburned and his tone serene, the former goof didn't carry himself like he did when he was younger.

Kim Possible pointed out, "I've been in the Pacific the last two weeks helping with salvage operations on a capsized cargo ship carrying relief supplies. Our ship had radio and Sat Phone, you could have called." Kim's had a harder edge than Dr. Director remembered.

"But it took days to find out where you two were! It's not like the old days when we could go to your website." complained the head of Global Justice.

"Nope, no website, not with the Wadester Argentine Tangoing his way across the Midwest last I heard. But, we are here now, what can we do for you?", asked Ron.

"DNAmy has kidnapped Dr. Drakken and Shego's child and is forcing them to help her in a take over the world scheme. The analysts think that there is a sixty-five percent chance it is really a destroy mankind scheme."

* * *

Simple enough mission, slip into Drakken's lair in the Florida Keys, free a child, stop the supervillain. Except for the child endangerment part, this kind of mission was hardwired in Kim's and Ron's muscle memory. Using jetpacks to glide along the surface of the water, they were startled to see a rocket launch. A big rocket, the kind that puts satellites into space.

"Not good KP!" Ron said over the tactical radio.

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes, five to sneak in, five to find the big red button and the world is saved. No Big. Since Shego is a victim here, we won't have to fight her," answered Kim who was getting stoked on the old familiar adrenaline rush.

Cutting the engines and silently gliding onto a beach, they saw what they expected. One low building with no windows, one door and two launch gantries, one with a rocket still on it. Leaving the jetpacks on the deserted beach, Kim turned on the stealth mode of her suit and Ron just disappeared.

Appearing at the steel door, Kim had her lockpicking tools out and was working on it when Ron appeared.

"Nobody is around, KP. Pretty spooky if you ask me. Want some help with that?" Ron said. pulling out the Lotus Blade.

"Nah, let me try this, it is quieter than slicing through the door. Maybe they are all inside to be away from the rocket blast?"

There was a soft click and Kim pushed the door open as a klaxon blared and rocket engines warmed up.

"Crap!" said Kim, "There goes sneaky" as the two went inside and closed the door reducing the roar of rocket engines to a dull rumble.

Looking down a long, dimly lit hallway, Kim murmured, "My suit doesn't have enough power for me to go invisible again. Do you want to go in front or behind me?" Ron's ninja stealth was a major source of surprise for the bad guys and they had practiced it both with Ron leading and Kim leading while they had still worked together before going their own ways years ago.

"After you, my lady," Ron replied as he vanished from view. As she started down the hall she heard a voice behind her whisper hot breath blowing on her ear, "Am I allowed to mention the niceness of your butt?"

Kim clamped her hand over her mouth to muffle a snort. As soon as this mission was over, she had to figure out how to get back in Ron's life. Even as just a friend.

"It's not…."

"Is too, I've seen my fair share in the baths at school. Just passing along a compliment.", the blond man told her.

"Passing along?"

"Yeah, all the girl shinobis were jealous."

* * *

Even over the distortion caused by the ultra-secure, ultra-stealth comms link, Betty could hear the stress in Ron's voice. It was hard to tell, but that sound in the background could be Kim sobbing.

"Dr. Director, this is Ron. Everyone is dead. We have found DNAmy, Drew, Shego, their child, and a dozen or so technicians. We're declaring a biological hazard emergency. In fact, do you have a nuke handy? Nuke the lair. Nuke it now. We might be contaminated and if what we see is… well, I don't want to end up like that." Ron's voice broke at the last statement as he was obviously calling an airstrike on his position with Kim present.

"Wait!" Kim's voice was mostly steady. "Dr. Director, you need to have your people figure out what was on those rockets before you melt this place. Anybody that steps on the island must have full bio-isolation gear. We think it is biological, but could be chemical. I'm praying that it is chemical."

* * *

After nearly 24 hours of helping technicians and various scientists in very awkward bio-isolation suits gather samples from the bodies, Kim and Ron lay cuddled on a bed in an isolation chamber under light sedation. Whatever had affected the victims on the island did not seem to affect them. But it was definitely still active as evidenced by a technician who had decided it was safe and pulled off his hood and gloves. Within fifteen minutes, he was a slavering beast, trying to tear the throat out of a fellow tech with his bare teeth. The heavy material of the suit's hood protected his fellow long enough for Kim and Ron to disable the infected man. Twenty-four hours later, he died of heart failure.

Outside, Dr. Director looked through a heavy glass window at the two.

"You're telling me that those two have no special immunities, that they are just lucky?" she said.

"Effectively, yes," said Dr. Stephanie Neisseria, a senior scientist from the CDC. "The virus is spread by blood to blood exposure and Ron's ninja suit and Kim's super suit protected them from blood contamination. Even dried blood is deadly. Some idiot managed to infect himself from the remains of Kim's suit on the way to the incinerator. Five people died before the outbreak was contained. Have your specialists found what was in those rockets?"

"No, the computers in the lair didn't have that information. We suspect that DNAmy created the virus and the rocket payloads and brought them here." Betty replied.

"Payloads?"

"Yes, once the rockets reached low orbit, they released hundreds of items the size and shape as a can of beans. The Middleton Space Center is going up with their shuttle to retrieve one." It was all Dr. Director could do to stand upright. 'Sleep or stimulants?' she asked herself. "I can sleep when I'm dead,' she thought, reaching for the bottle of tablets in her pocket.

* * *

"Ronnie? You awake?"

"Yeah"

"It's the summer after our junior year in high school, isn't it?", Kim purred.

"Kim, it's a lot later than that…"

"Tell me that it's the summer after our junior year in high school." Kim picked her head up from his shoulder and started to give him the puppy dog pout.

"It's the summer after our junior year in high school."

"And we're in the make-out meadow at Uncle Slim's Lazy C."

"Yep, I can hear the birds chirping."

"You're weird, but I like weird. I will always like weird. Especially 'weird with a little goof on the side'."

"That's not what you said the following fall…"

"I was wrong Ronnie. And now it's too late to take it back," breathing a great sigh, Kim laid her head back on his shoulder. "Now the world is going to pay for my foolishness."

"KP, none of this is your fault. Besides, if we had stayed together, we would have done more missions and just maybe I would have pushed the wrong red button and destroyed the planet years ago. We are here because we made the best decisions that we could. Come on, let's get up and see if we can get someone to bring us some breakfast. I feel like I haven't eaten in days."

* * *

After cleaning up in the tiny bathroom in the isolation room, they tried to contact anyone using the intercom. Getting no answer and becoming more and more uneasy about the silence, Ron finally called the Lotus Blade and cut their way out.

They found coveralls to put on and located their mission packs and Kimmunicators.

The "message waiting" icon was blinking.

"Kim, Ron," Dr. Director's face was haggard and pale, "I am hoping that your part of the facility was not breached. Right after I left for Middleton, the virus got loose in the facility. Florida is now considered lost and US Military has blockaded the lower two-thirds of the state. People trying to flee north are shot on sight."

She looked off-camera then continued, "Kim, your father used the Kepler Seven to retrieve five of the canisters for analysis. It turns out that three of the canisters were traps. In transporting them, they exploded, spreading the virus in the remaining two."

"Dad?", Kim sniffed.

The woman rubbed her face with an unsteady hand and with a face filled with sorrow continued, "Middleton is lost and I suspect that we will be unable to stop the infection. I believe the Americas will be lost within days. As the remaining canisters fall back to earth, they will doom the rest of the world. The canisters will start reentry in 13 days."

With a wild-eyed look, the devastated woman finished, "There is one chance for survival! You must find Hana Stoppable and get her to the CDC in Atlanta. For some reason, she appears to be immune."

The communicator showed a short drone video of Hana at the zoo. The six-year-old girl was bloody and clearly showing bite marks but was walking with a staff, surrounded by a protective phalanx of monkeys.

Checking the date on the message, Kim saw that it was two days old.

* * *

Gingerly making their way out the facility meant avoiding dried blood and bodies that seemed to be everywhere. They found a fleet of perfect vehicles, bio-isolation RVs with emergency stores, extra fuel tanks, all fully gassed up and ready to roll. Didn't even have any dead bodies to remove.

They got twenty miles. The interstate highways were a steel graveyard holding the bodies of people trying to flee. The side roads were the same.

The RV had portable air purifier masks. Taking those, they scrounged motorcycles and pressed on. The masks weren't for protection against viruses, they were for protection against the stench of thousands, if not millions of torn and bloody bodies starting to rot. Kim knew she was becoming dehydrated as the pair picked their way across the country. Pulling up her mask to drink was not an option, the smell, which she swore she could feel in the air, would have her throwing up anything she managed to drink. She did notice that Ron had nary a complaint, unlike the old days.

The military had taken a stand across the state around Gainesville. The gaps from exploded vehicles actually made it a little easier to get through compared to the lines of bumper-to-bumper cars they had seen up until then. Crossing the line of military vehicles, they pondered how the infection got past. Probably someone saw a relative or a loved one, let them through and that was it. Once past the blockade, the density of vehicles and dead bodies rapidly dropped off. Far to the back, they found a cluster of CDC bio-isolated RVs, one had burned, another had wrecked into a tree and the last one "only" had two bodies with their throats ripped out and blood everywhere. Dumping the bodies outside then pulling a couple of gallons of bleach and water from storage, they cleaned the RV and themselves up the best that they could.

Kim sealed the doors while Ron switched on the filtered air blowers.

"God bless the smell of bleach, it gets rid of the stench," Kim gasped as Ron tossed her a water bottle.

"No kidding. There were times out there I was almost ready to just pack it in," Ron replied.

"You know, inside the mask with restricted vision and no smells, I was almost able to convince myself that it wasn't real," Kim admitted, "Do you think Hana is still alive?"

Ron closed his eyes. "Yes," he said, "She was trapped somewhere like a lab, but she escaped and is now waiting for us."

"Us?" Kim asked.

"Well, mostly me," Ron replied, "Remember? Master Sensei told us that loving and protecting the Han was important to the world." Ron closed his eyes and sighed, "Fat lot of good I was doing in Japan to protect her."

"Would a reminder to us have killed them?" Kim complained, "I mean, you were right there. I was a phone call away."

"Yeah, well, Senseis all have this thing about you learning your own lesson. I mean, you would have thought that they would have had a booklet for the MMP at least."

It was an old complaint and Kim found it oddly comforting.

She said, "So, set up watches and get some sleep?"

"Nah, I learned a new trick," Ron smiled, dangerously close to a goofy grin, which melted Kim's heart around the edges. He pulled out the Lotus Blade and it turned into a softly glowing blue wind chime. Hanging it on the rearview mirror, he said, "It will chime if danger is present or near. Perfect for one-person missions when you want to get in a little marinating."

"Spankin!" Kim said, "Let's grab a snack and get some sleep."

They munched on MREs in silence, then Kim pulled a bench seat out into a bed. Starting to strip off her damp clothes, she said, "Get out of those clothes and let's get some sleep." _[A/N To avoid scarring certain readers, the unimaginable horror of the contents of their MREs is purposely omitted.]_

Ron looked flustered and said "Uh KP, I don't…" and Kim's heart melted. The old Ron was still there, at least some of the best parts of him."

She rolled her eyes, saying, "Come on, Ron, I've seen it all, unless you have a new tattoo, the traces of bleach in the clothes with irritate your skin, MY skin if I cuddle up to you and we'll just sleep OK? Besides, you've probably seen a lot more in the baths."

Ron laughed, an easy laugh that melted Kim's heart even more. "Sure KP. Although in the baths you don't cuddle."

* * *

The next three days were spent picking their way across the South and up to Colorado. Without a geographic bottleneck to concentrate fleeing people, they never came across the vast, seemingly never-ending steel graveyards of vehicles that they saw in Florida. It also helped that they were able to skirt large towns and cities. The RV had a radio, but it was either defective or there was nobody alive to talk to. The silence on CDC Atlanta's frequency was the sound of doom.

The night of the ninth day since their failed mission was filled with shooting stars. DNAmy's canisters were coming down earlier than predicted.

Driving into Middleton made the horror real. Except for refueling stops, they had spent all their time in the safe cocoon of the RV. Safe from infection. Safe from the smells of death. Safe from having to accept that everything around them was real. Nights were doubly safe, they had the isolation of the RV, the isolation of darkness, and they had each other to cling to keep the nightmares at bay.

But Middleton was real. Even though neither had called it home for years, this was their home, their friends, their favorite places. They did not stop at their family homes, Ron could feel where they needed to go and maybe Hana decided to spare them that horror.

Ron pulled up by the pre-school where they had met all those years ago.

"She's here somewhere," Ron said, parking the RV and shutting off the engine.

The night before, he had laid out his plan. They would assume that Hana would be safe as long as she wasn't bleeding. Ron would go out with a breathing mask, bring her back and Kim would activate the decontamination spray from inside the RV. No matter what, as long as Hana was alive, Kim was not to leave the RV. Ron heart melted when Kim simply replied, "OK, that's what we'll do." No objections, no complaints, no giving a different plan, just "OK". It was more than just her acceptance of his plan, it was her acceptance of him. Total acceptance. That night they were together in a way that they hadn't been in years.

Ron was setting up his gear when he heard a little girl scream. Snatching up the Lotus Blade he flew out the door.

"Decontaminate and seal the doors!" he shouted. In his haste, he had opened the outer door before the inner had a chance to seal itself.

Kim flew to the inner rear door, making sure it was sealed and sprayed a fog of bleach into the airlock space. Turning to go to the side window, she saw what Ron, in his haste, had left behind. His breathing filter mask.

Hana ran screaming around the corner of the building chased by the first living humans he had seen since Florida. Their clothes were ripped and covered in blood; they chased his sister, not seeing him in their disease induced rage. Two strides and Ron was in their midst, dismembering and beheading the doomed people. Untouched, but still covered in blood, Ron took time to look at them. Dirty red hair and blue eyes staring vacantly in death destroyed the last of his hope. Mrs. Dr. P. Ron fell to his knees in abject despair. Had he looked at the RV, he would have seen his KP pounding on the window screaming, tears streaming down her face. He would have seen her following his plan to the bitter end. His last prayer was that she didn't recognize that he had killed her infected mom.

The comforting blue haze that usually covered his vision at times like these became polluted by black tendrils of viral rage. Many small, strong hands picked him up and carried him around the building out of sight of the RV.

"Hey Little Intruder," Ron grinned through his grief and despair, "Just wanted to drop by and tell you that I love you."

"I know brother, I love you too," Hana replied.

"I can feel the virus taking me over," Ron held up the Lotus Blade, reversed it and held it to Hana, hilt first. "Please, Hana," he pleaded, "free me, I am too weak to do it myself. Don't make Kim kill me or let me hurt anyone. Become the Monkey Master."

"Thank you for not letting KP see me die," Ron told the monkeys surrounding him.

Hana took the blade. With a tear running down her face, she swung the blade down with all her might on the kneeling Ron. The blade cut cleanly and the sound of a thud made her scream in rage and sorrow.

Finally, composing herself, Hana said, "Come on, we have to try to convince Kim to drive us to zoos and free your brothers. I suspect that you guys will mess up just like people did, but we gotta give you that chance.

* * *

Kim was tired. She had driven Hana over much of the country, breaking monkeys out of cages. She had spent time teaching her to drive, duct-taping blocks of wood to the pedals so that the Last Monkey Master could reach them. The last air filter in the RV was getting clogged beyond fixing. Kim, for the first time in weeks? months? had put on a filter mask and stepped out of the RV. Hana, tears streaming down her face, hugged her tightly and then let go.

"Thank you for not making me do it, Kim" sobbed the little girl.

"It's no big Hana. I love you." Turning, Kim walked to a large Oak tree and sat on the far side, out of sight of the RV. Waiting until the RV started up and slowly drove away, she took off her mask.

She pulled her old grapple out of her holster. It currently had the steel piercing tip. Placing the tip against her heart, she hugged the last connection she had to Ron tightly.

"Ron, if there is a better place, maybe I can treat you better there. I miss you."

She pulled the trigger.


End file.
